New Cloud Security Alliance Survey Finds Uneven Adoption of Emerging Technologies

Organizational plans for Zero Trust, AI/ML, Quantum-Safe Security, 5G, and Blockchain are among the technology preferences revealed in this insightful study

SEATTLE – Feb. 3, 2022 – The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining standards, certifications, and best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, today released the findings of its latest survey, Cloud Security and Technology Maturity. Commissioned by CyberRes, a Micro Focus line of business, one of the world’s largest enterprise software providers, the survey offers insight into organizations’ current and future plans regarding cloud strategy, security strategy, cloud services, and cloud-related technologies.

“Cloud is a continuously evolving space with new services, strategies, and technologies springing up seemingly overnight. It’s imperative, therefore, that organizations regularly change and adapt their approach to cloud and cloud security," said Hillary Baron, lead author and research analyst, Cloud Security Alliance. “While many of the survey's findings were in line with what we would expect, it was surprising that some technologies that have garnered the most hype are not, in fact, what organizations are planning to implement.”

Despite the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, privacy-by-design is in the development stage with two-thirds of the organizations (65%) either currently building or planning to build the strategies, while only eight percent of respondents indicated having a fully implemented privacy-by-design strategy. Similarly, the survey found that while blockchain and distributed ledger technology have been hyped for years, implementation rates have stagnated, likely as a result of high failure rates stemming from a lack of technical knowledge coupled with a high demand on resources. Quantum-safe security and 5G are also not seeing widespread implementation to date, with further analysis needed to analyze causes and predict a more robust implementation timeline.

“The results of this survey were just as notable for what it did find, as what it didn’t reveal. The growing popularity of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and Zero Trust, for instance, was definitely in keeping with what we have been hearing anecdotally across the industry, but there were also some surprises in what companies aren’t using. While multi-cloud adoption is strongly favored, many organizations are facing challenges in taking deployments to a next level. There is a higher need to provide security technologies that help alleviate these concerns,” said Satya Divadari, Head of Enterprise Security Architecture, CyberRes, a Micro Focus line of business.

Among the survey’s key findings:

• Organizations are utilizing multi-cloud despite the challenges.
• Although the concept of privacy-by-design was introduced over a decade ago, 26 percent of organizations have no plans to implement a privacy-by-design strategy, indicating low maturity in this space.
• The top three cloud-related technologies that organizations plan to implement in the next two years are zero trust (60%), artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (43%), and serverless computing (42%).
• Use of software-defined perimeter (47%), attack service management (45%), and Cloud Security Posture Management (45%) is expected to increase in the next two years.
• The top technologies that organizations are not planning to use are blockchain (59%), quantum-safe security (54%), and 5G (49%).

The survey, which was conducted with CyberRes and CSA’s Bangalore Chapter, gathered 256 responses from IT and security professionals from various organization sizes, industries, locations, and roles. Sponsors are CSA Corporate Members who support the research project’s findings but have no added influence on the content development or editing rights of CSA research.

Download the full survey.

About CyberRes
CyberRes is a Micro Focus line of business. We bring the expertise of one of the world’s largest security portfolios to help our customers navigate the changing threat landscape by building both cyber and business resiliency within their teams and organizations. CyberRes is part of a larger set of digital transformation solutions that fight adverse conditions so businesses can continue to run today, keep the lights on, and transform to grow and take advantage of tomorrow’s opportunities.

About Cloud Security Alliance
The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment. CSA harnesses the subject matter expertise of industry practitioners, associations, governments, and its corporate and individual members to offer cloud security-specific research, education, training, certification, events, and products. CSA's activities, knowledge, and extensive network benefit the entire community impacted by cloud — from providers and customers to governments, entrepreneurs, and the assurance industry — and provide a forum through which different parties can work together to create and maintain a trusted cloud ecosystem. For further information, visit us at www.cloudsecurityalliance.org, and follow us on Twitter @cloudsa.